by JL Madore
“Roger that.” Doc grabs two empty coffee cups from the floor beside their chairs. “Carry these and you’ll blend in. Just two people out to grab some java.”
Keyla chuckles. “Creed doesn’t really blend. He’s six-foot-three guy with ebony eyes and long white hair.”
I pull the hood up on the sweater I borrowed from Doc and cover my head. “How about now? Better?”
Keyla laughs. “Now you’re six-foot-three with ebony eyes and long white hair under a hood.”
Lukas mutters something and passes a hand in front of my face. “It’s temporary but will work well enough for what we’re doing.”
Keyla, Rhy, and Doc are staring.
“What? What did he do?”
“He glamored you to look like an old man,” Brant says. “A withered, homely old man.”
Keyla rolls her eyes. “Don’t believe him. You just don’t look like you. You’ve got black hair and green eyes. It’s a fine disguise.”
“Pitter-patter,” Brant says.
Keyla nods as if she understands what he means. “Let’s get atter. Evil witch, here we come.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Keyla
It’s unnerving to look at Creed and not see the male I know is beneath the illusion of Lukas’s glamor. Still, it’s safer this way. He is very recognizable as the King of Dornte and if the Blood Witch happened to see him coming our advantage of surprise would be gone.
As planned, Lukas and Rhylan make their way across the street while Creed and I leave the building from another exit so that we come along the sidewalk from another direction.
Lukas thought it would be too noticeable if all six of us came out from the main exit and shot straight across the road. I’ve learned not to question him.
Lukas is excellent at what he does.
When they head into the glass breezeway of the condominium building, Creed and I pretend to drink our coffees and follow them inside.
I sense Doc’s bear close behind us and my wolf ascends, excited for what comes next.
“Thanks so much,” I say to Rhylan as he holds the door open for us. I pretend he’s just a helpful stranger and pay it forward, holding the door open for the two handsome bears coming in behind us.
Lukas calls the elevator and while the six of us wait silently for the car to arrive, Creed and I toss our cups in the trash slot provided.
The whine of mechanics signals the arrival of the elevator and the doors squeak as the pulley system opens them up. Two blue-skinned faeries hurry to catch the elevator, but Brant and Doc turn to face them and fill the entrance.
“Sorry, you’ll have to get the next one, ladies,” Brant says, his voice deep.
The two seem more mesmerized by Brant than put out at having to wait.
I get that. He’s a lot of sexy male to take in.
The moment the doors bump shut, I shift and let my wolf take over. My wildling side is close to the surface, so shifting forms is quick and easy. Sniffing the button panel, I search for the witch’s scent.
The silver buttons are so polluted with scents it’s impossible to get a solid read on what floor she pushes, but I can discern that she’s pushed a button near the middle right.
I only came into contact with her for five minutes on the night we raided the compound in the Travon badlands, but you tend to remember the scent of the women hired to torture and curse your mate.
Skimming my nose over the buttons, I press the three with the strongest trace of her.
“Good girl,” Brant says. “Eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four. We’ll narrow it down on foot.”
When the elevator opens on eighteen there’s a three-foot woman with moss-green skin and tufty brown hair waiting on the other side of the doors. I look at her eye-to-eye and she staggers back.
Doc catches her arm as she stumbles and steadies her. “Are you all right, miss? Don’t be frightened. Keyla is a sweet girl. She won’t hurt you.”
“That’s a very big dog. Is that a dog? We’re not allowed pets in this building. Who are you? You don’t live on this floor.” Before she descends into a complete mental spiral, Lukas sets a hand on her shoulder and her expression clears. “It’s fine. Have a good day.”
“You too,” Lukas says, escorting her inside the empty elevator.
When the doors shut, Creed pats Lukas on the shoulder. “Thank you for that. She looked like she might sound the alarms.”
Lukas gestures for me to continue. “Princess, the floor is yours.”
I pad along on all fours and sniff my way up the hall to the left and back and then to the right. With my nose against the tile floor, I’m smelling an overwhelming roar of citrus disinfectant… which is great for the tenants but not great for tracking down an evil witch.
At each doorway, I smell the threshold and the doorknob before moving to the next.
When I’m done, I am satisfied there’s nothing here that will lead us to the witch. I sit on my haunches and shake my head. Not on eighteen.
“Twenty-one then,” Brant says, thumbing the call button. We stand there waiting for a moment and then Doc tilts his head toward the stairs. “Quicker and easier.”
Everyone seems to agree. After climbing the three flights of stairs, I repeat my search.
Nope. Not twenty-one either.
The moment we exit the stairwell onto the twenty-fourth floor, I let off a little yip. Her scent is present and strong. I don’t bother with the tile floor and focus on the threshold and the doorknobs. I find the one I’m sure she’s in, but continue until I eliminate the others.
When I return to the entrance to 2408, I shift back and straighten next to my mates. With a nod, I point to the door and step back as Brant and Lukas assume first position.
“Drop the glamor,” Creed whispers to Lukas. “When that bitch sees us rushing in, I want her to know it’s me coming for her.”
Lukas moves his hands in front of Creed’s face and then my mate is himself again.
“I missed your face,” I whisper.
Creed winks. “That’s nice to know.”
Lukas turns his attention back to the doorway and I sense when the air crackles to life with the power of his magical abilities. He’s working on something and then it becomes clear. As he continues with his magic, the door starts to glow with magical beams that look much like laser beams in a museum.
The warding is extensive and takes almost ten minutes of Lukas’s full focus before the beams dim and disappear.
Brant holds out his knuckles for a bump and Doc and I do the same.
Creed and Rhylan seem unaccustomed to the practice but now that the quint is part of their lives, they’ll get used to it.
Lukas nods to Brant, and then my brother-in-law pulls out a hand-held thermal gauge to scan the rooms inside. We all lean over his shoulder to look. There are two heat signatures inside and to the left.
One sitting. One lying flat at waist height.
Lukas stands back, draws his weapon, and shows Brant three fingers.
Three, two, one…
Creed
Brant kicks the door with a solid strike of his boot and the slab flies inside unable to withstand the force. Rhylan and Lukas take point. Brant and I are inside next, and Doc and Keyla take position guarding the door to prevent escape.
The Blood Witch looks up from where she’s torturing her next poor victim. The woman is stretched out stiff and hovering in the air over the dining room table. The strangled noises she makes are pitiful. They cross between a weak gasp and a sob.
Emaciated as she is, it looks like her life is all but drained from her.
Lukas squeezes off a couple of quick shots before the witch can get her hands up to defend. The force of human bullets is nothing she’s prepared for.
Her body twists as first her shoulder is impacted and then her leg. She lets off a demented scream and the woman levitating crashes to the table below.
Rhylan and Brant rush forward but a pulse of magical energy detonates an
d we’re all thrown back by an invisible wave.
My ears ring as I scramble onto my knees and look back to make sure Keyla isn’t hurt.
She and Doc seem dazed but unharmed.
Something wild and primal ignites in me and it gives me the strength to get to my feet and tackle the bitch before the others. I’ve never struck a woman but for her, I make an exception.
With a hard right cross, I connect and send her head pivoting to the side. Two years of fury and anguish emerge and there’s no way I can stop the outpouring of violence. And I don’t want to.
“Kill me and your sister never wakes,” she grunts.
I barely hear the words when I’m caught up from behind and Brant and Doc pull me off her.
“Creed,” Doc grunts as I turn my fury on them. “Let Lukas take her into custody. Alive is better, remember? We can’t condemn your sister.”
Lukas moves in, taking advantage of my immobilization. “I’ll bind her. You can kill her after I free Honor.”
“She needs to die,” I seeth.
Keyla blocks my vision and cups my jaw in her hands. A calming rush washes through me, taking the violence out of my fury, much like when her brother touches me. “First we break the spells cursing you and Honor. Then you get your revenge.”
I’m practically vibrating with the need to strangle that bitch but I hear the wisdom in Keyla’s words. Reining in my homicidal impulses, I stop fighting the hold of the bears. “All right. I understand. I’m okay.”
Keyla’s smile is the balm to the fire raging in my soul. She steps forward and meets me chest-to-chest. Her embrace is strength and love and everything I need at this moment.
Over her shoulder, I watch as Rhylan and Lukas struggle to secure the witch. Even bleeding and after a few pounding punches, she’s still fighting. The two of them modified a magic inhibitor collar to latch around her neck but she seems to be repelling it somehow.
Lukas is speaking in tongues and the witch is writhing, bleeding heavily out of the wounds in her shoulder and thigh.
“Give it up,” I snap. “You’re done. Face it and accept your fate.”
“Release the dark power you’re holding onto,” Lukas says. “It’s killing you. Surely you feel your body eating itself alive from within.”
The scarlet-haired witch smiles at him. “The only way to truly rise to the top is to risk more than others believe is safe.”
“You’re not on top,” I shout. “You might have fooled yourself into thinking so for the past couple of years, but that’s over. Accept that you’re beaten.”
She lets off a maniacal laugh and I’m back to wanting to rip her head off.
Keyla grips my arms hard and gets between me and the woman who leveled my life. “Ignore her. Once that collar is activated, she’ll be helpless to fight. Let’s see if there’s anything we can do for the female.”
Shit. I completely forgot about the woman.
Doc hasn’t. The healer in him is already hard at work assessing her injuries. When we move closer, he meets our gaze and shakes his head.
I understand. There’s nothing any of us can do for the female.
Doc steps back looking distraught. “I can’t even… I don’t even know what was done to her to bring her to this state.”
Lukas glances our way and frowns. “It’s a desiccation spell. The witch has physically sucked the life force and power out of her to consume and increase her own strength.”
“Can it be reversed?” Keyla asks. “Is there a spigot or something to tap the bitch and put it back?”
Lukas shakes his head. “Unfortunately no. For the female to be that whithered and gaunt, the witch has probably been feeding off her for years. The kindest thing we can do is end her suffering.”
Fucking hell.
Another casualty of misplaced power.
“What kind of fae is she?” Keyla asks.
I take a good look at her and can’t tell. The damage is unbelievable. As horrible as it’s been to be cursed and suffer the siphoning of my soul each time I become the beast she cast over me, this is worse—so much worse.
The drained husk of the female tells me nothing of her species, so I scan her with my mind guardian energy. Her comprehension is foggy, her brain activity weak.
Still… I recognize the signature.
My knees buckle. No. It’s impossible.
But I’m not wrong—it’s her.
Rising up, my vision goes red as the world narrows to a pin-dot. “You vile, horrific, bitch.” The control I’d barely tethered myself with dissolves in an instant. The scream that roars from my throat is filled with betrayal and fury.
Somehow, the next events seem to happen both in slow-motion and all at once.
I launch to attack and Lukas and Rhylan lose focus. The Blood Witch pushes back in an explosion of power and blasts through the glass of the window behind her.
She can’t escape… and yet that’s what’s happening.
I reach the ledge, diving out to grip her foot or wrist or something to keep her from getting away but it’s too late. With a soulless grin, she plummets backward toward the street twenty-four floors below.
Fine. Let her die that way.
But she doesn’t.
The air below her glows iridescent, snaps with energy, and then swallows her into nothingness. One moment she’s there, dropping toward the street, and the next there’s a snap of magic and she’s gone.
“Noooo!” I scream.
The beast inside me pulls at my control and I fight not to lose myself to its evil possession. How did this happen? We had her. I had her.
“You should’ve let me kill her!” I have my hands around Lukas’s throat. “You let her get away!”
Voices bombard me from all sides but I don’t hear the words. I’ve got nothing but the darkness of the beast inside me and the rage of knowing the woman who took everything from me is laughing and free.
A bolt of energy hits me and I’m flying through the air. I hit the sofa and flip backward ending up face-first on a carpet. Before I can get up, crushing weight lands on my back and I’m pinned to the floor.
“We didn’t let her do anything,” Rhylan says, leaning close to my face. “Even with two bullets in her, me holding her, and Lukas trying to undo her magical safeguards, she had enough strength to fight us off. She’s a slecking force, Creed.”
Keyla lays beside me and brushes my hand. “It’s going to be all ri—”
“Don’t.” I pull my hand away from the comfort of her touch and glare over my shoulder. “Get the fuck off me.”
Dillan and Brant exchange a look and then get up.
I push off the floor and focus on the woman dying on the table. My adrenaline flags and my legs threaten to give out. I lean against the wood surface and brush back her hair. It’s so much longer than the last time I saw her.
“For two years I have mourned your death and now I wish that had been your end instead of this.”
Bloom. My beautiful, spirited lover. I am so sorry.
Her eyes are fogged over with confusion, death closing in, but when she sees me, her gaze brightens a little. My prince. I knew you’d come.
I’m sorry. I was held captive and…
Don’t… You came... That is everything. Return me home to my family so I may join them in the grove.
I will. I swear.
Then I am at peace for the after.
Knowing what she’s saying, I blink back tears. Blessed be, my beautiful, Bloom.
Blessed be, my prince.
I swipe at the moisture blurring my vision and meet Lukas’s gaze. He’s furious with me and has ugly bruising on his throat where I attacked him only moments ago. “I apologize for losing my mind. Please don’t take that out on her. She’s ready. Please make it quick.”
Lukas touches her forehead, whispers a few words in tongues, and then Bloom is gone.
I meet the compassionate gazes of the people I consider my family now and I don’t know how to
explain. The guilt. The regret. The horror of knowing I’ve been happy the past week and in love while Bloom lay here bound and dying.
Removing the restraints from her stick-thin wrists and ankles, I scoop her against my chest and head for the door. “It should never have ended like this.”
Rhylan
Slecking hell. Vikarus and I fought in the siege of the castle during Laryssa’s coup and weren’t part of the queen’s guard until the castle was secure. I never met Bloom. Creed spoke of her often, but he believed she was dead and I assumed he was right.
The reality is barbaric.
Creed heads toward the exit with the shell of his ex-lover in his arms and Keyla and Doc fall in behind him.
I’m about to join them when Lukas raises his chin and catches my attention. “Go with them. Brant and I will call our team in and see if there’s anything here we can salvage. We’ll be back tonight to fill you all in on what we find.”
“Good luck.
It’s a somber group waiting by the elevators when I catch up. Creed is staring straight at the polished, metal doors and when Keyla sets her hand on his shoulder, he shrinks away from it. “Please don’t.”
The acrid burn of that rejection singes my nostrils and offends my dragon. Creed’s withdrawal cuts her deeply. Dillan reaches to hold her hand, his expression murderous.
Creed’s hurting. They understand that, right?
How do they expect him to deal with his feelings for one love by accepting comfort from another? It’s messed up. Even from beyond the grave, Laryssa destroys lives.
This isn’t Creed’s fault. Nor is it Keyla’s.
I smell the anguish behind her tears and her silent sorrow affects not only my dragon. I reach forward and brush her tears with my thumb. “We’ll make this right. We can’t allow that bitch to win.”
Keyla lifts her chin and forces a smile. “I’m fine. We were expecting fallout. We just—”
Creed rounds on us, his expression wild. “Bloom isn’t fallout.”
Keyla’s wolf lets off a pitiful whine and before I realize what I’m doing, I pull her against my chest. Meeting his gaze, I straighten to my full height. “We all get that your world just exploded. Don’t shit on us for caring. Lock it down and back the hell off.”